Supplemental enzymes are used as additives to animal feed, particularly poultry and swine feeds, as a means to improve nutrient utilization and production performance characteristics. Enzyme blends are available to improve the nutritional value of diets containing soybean meal, animal protein meals, or high fibre food by-products.
The concept of direct fed microbials (DFM) involves the feeding of beneficial microbes to animals, such as dairy cattle when they are under periods of stress (disease, ration changes, environmental or production challenges). Probiotics is another term for this category of feed additives. Probiotics or DFM have been shown to improve animal performance in controlled studies. DFM including direct fed bacteria and or yeast-based products.
Although combinations of DFMs with some enzymes have been contemplated, the interaction between DFMs and enzyme has never been fully understood. The present invention relates to novel specific combinations which surprisingly significantly improve production performance characteristics of animals.